I went to vote at my local welfare motel this morning on Sepulveda. It is wonderful how clueless I am when I get inside. There are three or four tables with election workers. The tables have ten digit numbers on them, which pertains to what section of the city you live in. You have to go back out into the hall to find your number on a black and white map. I did that.

I went back inside, grabbed a ballot and inserted the flimsy and hard to see paper with the little tiny dots into the place holder. Then I took out my LA Times voter guide and followed it exactly. I have to admit I know nothing about the various propositions and even if I did think something sounded nice, perhaps it would do more harm than good.

There was glare from the light, the room was hot and crowded and I couldn’t see the ballot very well. But when I was done I walked over to deposit it in the box and the woman said, “Rip off the top first”. So I did. But I unknowingly ripped off two of the upper parts and not just one, so she said, “No, no, no! You have to vote again.” I said I didn’t have time. So she told me to just put my dismembered ballot inside the slot and “we will take care of it”.

Was it worth it?

Voting is our civic duty. It only takes about ten minutes every couple of years. And when the votes are counted most California propositions will be defeated, and the ones that pass will ludicrously mandate that our tax dollars follow some pre-ordained route to fund programs that basically cancel each other out and turn ignoramous citizens like me into proxy legislators.